“When you buy your next personal computer, you may be pleasantly surprised to find that you have options, even for a business-class computer, that don’t involve running Microsoft Windows. Yes, you read that correctly. What is momentous is not that there are alternatives — there have been various alternatives the entire time the PC, or at least the IBM PC and its progeny, have existed. Rather, it’s noteworthy that as a PC/Windows snob, I’m willing to admit there are viable alternatives,” Samuel Lewis writes for Miami Daily Business Review.
“The first time I used an IBM PC in 1981, I was hooked. It held all of the promise and potential that any computer user could want. Sure, it had its shortcomings, but those were easily overlooked, particularly since there weren’t a whole lot of other options,’ Lewis writes. “At the time, the Apple was considered to be a toy, and Unix systems were too complex and cryptic for the average user. Older business-class systems were, well, older. As technology advanced, the PC continued to fuel the hope that the PC would finally be the end-all and be-all of computing.”
“Along the way, I became a PC snob. I believed that the PC was superior to all others as a business computer. It was this snobbery that pushed me into PC-based software development. I commented on more than one occasion that an Apple Macintosh computer would be a great peripheral to connect to the back of my PC,” Lewis writes. “While recent press from Microsoft might leave one with the impression that the current operating system war is between Windows and Linux, the media ignore another operating system that has finally come into its own.”
“In 2001, Apple redesigned the operating system for the Mac, now dubbed OS X. The operating system, which combines a familiar Mac interface with a form of Unix, has a curious combination of features and power. Like Windows, it employs a graphical user interface and menu-driven programs. Like Windows, a wide variety of business-class software exists, including a version of Microsoft’s Office suite of programs (Microsoft even bundles a program called VirtualPC with Microsoft Office Pro, and VirtualPC allows a Mac user to run Windows XP and native Windows programs on a Mac). Unlike Windows, however, OS X permits the more daring or sophisticated computer users to access the underlying Unix system directly,” Lewis writes.
“As an experiment, I started playing with a Mac this year, and the experience has been an eye-opener. Over the course of the year, I’ve found that the Mac has a number of advantages over Windows-based systems, not least of which is the fact that most viruses and spyware are specifically designed to exploit weaknesses in Windows. Either OS X doesn’t suffer from the same security problems as Windows, or it has been operating far enough under the radar that virus and spyware creators haven’t bothered to write programs aimed at OS X,” Lewis writes.
“I’ve also discovered that while where are some hurdles to using a Mac in an otherwise all-Windows office environment, these are easily overcome. After six months of using an Apple PowerBook as my primary computer, I am sufficiently impressed that if forced to select between a Windows-based system and a Mac, I would chose the Mac. This is not to say that the Mac is for everyone. But if you’re in the market for a new computer, you owe it to yourself to look at the Mac,” Lewis writes. “My days as a PC snob are over. While I would hardly call myself a Linux or Mac fanatic, I wouldn’t hesitate to select Linux for my next server or a Mac for my next personal computer.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ve seen and heard about this type of change all the time; more so, recently and growing in volume. Give the Mac a chance and you’ll pretty much end up a Mac user. “Once you go Mac, you never go back” is truer today than ever. We think Mr. Lewis is about to get a lot more company in the club of former Windows PC users who’ve decided the far better choice is Apple’s Mac OS X.
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